'Retired' cybercrime group demands $989M not to leak 1B Salesforce records

Despite at least three arrests and talk of retirement, a crew now calling itself Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters has reemerged with a data-leak site listing about 40 companies’ Salesforce environments, and is demanding $989.45 to prevent what it claims is about 1 billion stolen records from being published online.

The gang set an October 10 deadline for Salesforce to negotiate a payment, "or all your customers' data will be leaked."

When asked about the criminals' claims, a Salesforce spokesperson directed The Register to the company's Thursday security advisory.

"We are aware of recent extortion attempts by threat actors, which we have investigated in partnership with external experts and authorities," the advisory said. 

"Our findings indicate these attempts relate to past or unsubstantiated incidents, and we remain engaged with affected customers to provide support," it continued. "At this time, there is no indication that the Salesforce platform has been compromised ...